Cut paper with rotary cutter
For tailors and people who like to tinker and rumge ingenious: The rotary cutter! It is a tool that at first glance looks like a pizza cutter and is initially intended for the professionally fast and accurate cutting of fabrics. It can be bought in almost every craft department / sewing machine shop and has - like the pizza cutter - a sharp, rotating blade. This gets dull over time. For fabrics, I then buy a new blade (it can be easily replaced) and continue to use the "old", but now only for paper and thin cardboard.
At the end of the year, e.g. I cut off the calendar, which is mostly below, and continue to use the calendar as a whole (but now without a monthly and number gallery) as a decorative piece, changing from leaf to leaf as the mood dictates. Or I solve the sheets completely from the calendar reason and can attach them later with removable adhesive strips individually as a great "picture" on the wall / door cabinet .... To increase the effect of these former calendar sheets, you can also make a passe-partout by sticking them still on colored cardboard, which is larger than the pure image format. The passe-partout can be cut with the rotary cutter super-exactly right-angled (or sometimes cheeky in any polygon ?!)
As a cutting pad you need in any case a so-called patchwork mat, which is about 0.4 cm thick and made of appropriately crafted plastic, which protects the blade and protects the table. The rotary cutter should always be guided directly along the edge of a ruler, so that it does not slip during the cutting or ends up in your own finger. There are particularly thick, transparent rulers in different sizes to buy (so-called patchwork rulers). They are printed both horizontally and vertically with cm or inch marks and in any case also with the most important angles for cutting special fabric shapes (rectangles, triangles ...). Patchwork mat, patchwork ruler, rotary cutter and repair blades are also available in well-assorted craft shops. Except for the spare blades, all parts are unique purchases - maybe the next gift ?!
With the rotary cutter can also be very good fine strips cut, which can be only a few millimeters wide and can be used for crafts (uses with open end ...). For hobby cutters: If you cut very narrow strips of fabric, it can also be excellently thin spaghetti straps, straps or bag handles u.a.m. cut and then sew or make a braided picture.
Some rotary cutters are also equipped with a spacer, so that you always have the same seam allowance to be set on all edges when cutting freehand material, thus making the tailor's chalk unnecessary!
The rotary cutter is available in three sizes, i. with blades of different diameters: The larger, the thicker fabrics ... can be cut. With the very small you can freehand (without ruler) cut wonderfully curvy (when cutting under the armpits) or just achieve small circles.
The rotary cutter always has to be rolled away from the body (!) While it is being used, and it must be pressed very hard - not back and forth like the pizza cutter.
I almost forgot to mention that with the rotary cutter (no matter whether it is fabric or paper) you can always cut several layers at the same time, which then have the same shape without always having to measure again - simply ingenious!
If you use a ruler as an aid, here is another tip against slipping: Stick small pieces of sandpaper to the underside of the fabric or paper. They still leave enough space to look through, but prevent the ruler from slipping during the cutting process! So in the truest sense of the word "nothing can go wrong"!
Finally, I would like to point out that you can learn the handling of the above-mentioned tools (at least in Hamburg) in adult education courses. Many courses in the tailor and craft sector are no longer without and open up completely new perspectives.
